Abstract
Ethnographic research is characterised by in-person engagement with individuals and groups within a social setting, usually over an extended timeframe. These elements provide valuable insights which cannot be gained through other forms of research. In addition, such levels of involvement in “the field” create complex, shifting researcher-participant relationships which themselves shape the course of the project and its findings. The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted many research projects, but impacts on ethnographic research, with its emphasis on physical presence in the field and interpersonal relationships, reveals much about these key elements of our praxis.I discuss how the pandemic influenced the progress of an ethnographic research project, based in Malawi, including consideration of how, as lead for the project, my clinical/“public health” positionalities interacted with relationships in the village and the arrival of COVID-19 in Malawi. This account reveals shifting intersubjectivities of researchers and participants as the pandemic brought changes in the nature of the engagement, from ethnographic explorations into the roles of smoke in everyday life, through fieldwork suspension, and contextualised COVID-19 response. These experiences demonstrate how a basis of reflexive ethnographic engagement with communities can underpin thoughtful responses to upcoming challenges, with implications for future “global health” work, both within and beyond the pandemic context.
Highlights
This paper presents personal reflections on an ethnographic endeavour in rural Malawi, and impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on work in the village
I—as the main researcher—describe and explore my position in the field and related intersubjectivities, as they developed throughout the ethnographic fieldwork, and subsequently with the advent of the pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic illuminated the ways in which these historically grounded “global health” relations persist in shaping perspectives on and responses to new global health challenges
Summary
This paper presents personal reflections on an ethnographic endeavour in rural Malawi, and impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on work in the village. Whilst these matters may initially seem conceptually far from the “field,” in terms of the Malawian village where the ethnographic project was based, overarching colonial legacies and enduring economic relations continue to touch individuals’ daily lives here in myriad ways (Saleh et al, 2021) The influences of these complex historical and political factors were evident from the start of the research project, with further developments in response to the advent of the COVID-19 epidemic in Malawi. Through the window of the ethnographic project in Malawi and beyond, through its official suspension, I gained insights into the enduring legacies of colonial and post-colonial transnational relations for research relationships such as ours In this case, the COVID-19 pandemic illuminated the ways in which these historically grounded “global health” relations persist in shaping perspectives on and responses to new global health challenges
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